Embu County is targeting to register 131,000 farmers from six sub counties in the area during the ongoing farmers registration exercise for the government subsidised fertiliser programmme.
The area County Commissioner Stephen Kihara while addressing the media after training for Chiefs and their assistants at Talent Academy said that all the farmers who will be registered during the exercise will benefit from the Government’s subsidised fertiliser.
He urged farmers to cooperate with the chiefs and their assistants during the registration exercise by providing them with credible information so that they can benefit from the Government’s subsidy programme.
The Commissioner said that those farmers that will not have been registered by the close of the exercise on January 15 will not benefit.
“Our target is 131,000 farmers from all our six sub-counties in Embu,” he said, adding that the registration of farmers will be done at the Sub-location levels with the support of village elders.
He noted that the registration exercise will run from January 7 to 15.
The Commissioner called on the chiefs and assistant chiefs to give the registration exercise full attention to ensure success.
“We have agreed as a team to ensure that the exercise is given the total involvement that it requires and that we have suspended most of our activities that are usually outside our normal work so that we concentrate on this activity,” he disclosed.
Once a farmer is registered and upon the launch of the subsidy fertiliser distribution programme by President William Ruto on January 17, a farmer will be able to access the subsidised fertiliser by dialing a USSD code *707#.
The CC said during the training session that farmers will then follow the prompts after dialing a USSD to select the type of the fertiliser, quantity needed and then make payment.
He added that once a farmer makes payment, he will be issued with a subsidised fertiliser access voucher which a farmer will present to the nearest agrovet dealer for the issuance of his fertiliser.
Kihara called on the farmers to seek any assistance by calling 0800724050 a toll-free number or by sending an SMS to 0110150973.
He at the same time called on the chiefs and assistant chiefs to take good care of the Government’s tablets that they were issued with to aid them in bio-data collection during the registration of farmers exercise.
By Justus Anzaya
